Mabel Talk: Barbie's got back

In re. my posting about the Nicki Minaj video--that her backup dancers were surprisingly perhaps less conventionally hot than the usual backup dancers in pop videos, and less skinny--

a male heterosexual (I think!) friend said he usually finds backup dancers of female pop singers are generally not supa hot, presumably because it's part of the "gimmick." The entourage can't be prettier than the star.

This is a good point actually, which must work in inverse for the boys. I'm now about to launch into some theorizing. If it doesn't interest you, just scroll to the pictures! :-D

The attractiveness of the female backup dancers add to the virility of a male star. He doesn't want the men watching him to think, at least subconsciously: What's wrong with him, can't he get hotter chicks than this? The members of Metallica have commented that they could tell when their fan base expanded--they were "making it--because more women were turning up at their concerts, and the women in their showers after the concert (where they liked to have their groupies placed) were more attractive.

And it will tell you the status of the newest member of the band, bassist Jason Newsted, that they made sure he got the "least pretty" groupie. Hey... no one's consciously mating here, but that doesn't mean your genes ever stop trying to find the best waist to hip ratio, or symmetrical features, or maybe just the features that you believe confer you power amongst the males in your social group. Who knows.

So. The women in men's videos have to be hot so that male fans will enjoy the videos, and so that male fans will perceive the pop singer to be virile, and in some cases to bolster the ego of the pop singer since artists can be a very insecure bunch, in a very superficial and fickle head-case industry.

Similarly the status of a female pop star might depend upon her being the most attractive woman in "the room" (the video, the stage). In this fickle and superficial business, there is no one more subjected to the superficiality than a female pop star. Given how many people will be watching her weight and criticizing and commenting on her appearance--everyone from her management to the media to strangers on the net--it's in her best interest to not be outshone by her dancers. She can't have people thinking "what a cow" every time her video comes on.

But I don't know that dancers need to be picked out specifically for their plainness--you certainly don't want "ugly" dancers, cause that's distracting. The pop star will not be judged by male or female fans by her dancers' looks, the way a male pop singer will be--her dancers actually need to be nondescript. So if there is a higher incidence of "less attractive" backup dancers in female singers' videos (and that's hard to judge, but let's assume), then it's probably not because they're chosen for this quality (if you can call it that) but because the "really hot" women are not chosen.

If I'm casting for a video or a tour, I now have the luxury to look for dance skill, for body types that suit a particular show style, without also having to vet for hotness. If I think someone is "too pretty" that's probably easier to filter out than it is to choose for. It's also controllable through makeup. Conclusion: If backup dancers is women's videos are less pretty, it's because the attractiveness standard is lower than for men's videos.

But the one bar that's rarely lowered is that of body weight/size. And yet here, I think it's been lowered.

I still maintain that the women in Minaj's dance team are a little on the heavier side than usual; their choreography in this video is a lot less sexualized than we usually see; and it's possibly less sexualized over all, in her concerts. The "weight" factor could be imagined on my part; or it could be coincidental; or it could be because she has a crappy person casting her dancers; or it could be because of an intense insecurity on Minaj's part; or it could be an interesting "casting" choice based on Minaj's female-centered focus, which you can see throughout her work.

I also think Minaj's artistic sensibility in her videos and shows in party hiphop, and part theatrical like Gaga and Katy Perry. And as I'll show in the photos below, theatrical backup dancers are not definitely not chosen based on a narrow idea of beauty or body type. I don't think she's made a full crossover to the theatrical, but instead draws inspiration from it, and infuses it into her rap and hiphop sensibilities, and that's what causes the interesting cognitive dissonance in this video: the ice motorcycle, the boy eye candy, the not-really-sexy backup chicks. It has hiphop video elements, with a Katy Perry patina.

A final note: I don't inherently have a problem with women dancers being sexy or sexualized. It's just pretty ubiquitous at this point... it'll be a nice change when the pendulum swings.

Without more ado...

The Thin and Sexualized

Beyoncé

Rihanna & Friends' bottoms

Rihanna

Brit's infamous comeback

Dancers thinner than her that day

Britney Spears

Old Britney (same as the new, as were her dancers)

Janet Jackson

Christina Aguilera's attempt at an S&M comeback

Ciara (weird jeans, but you can see the dancer's six packs)

A backup dance group that's worked for women as well as men

Exceptions

These days Aguilera's doing a burleque thing (maybe because she's a little weightier herself?) So some of her dancers look a curvier to me.

Not in the below photo, though.

Katy Perry belongs to the Theatrical Set

There's sexy schoolgirl here, but no denying the dancer on the right has Thighs

Gaga's dancers are all skinny, but they look like ballet dancers to me--flat all over. And definitely not sexualized in the traditional sense. It's theatah dahling!

And of course, the original Queen of Pop Theatre. Her backup crew has always been more than just eye candy.

Two Interesting Asides

You can really see the change in aesthetic when you come across 90s videos. I don't think the bondage aesthetic is necessarily bad for women, I've just had my fill.

Check out these two images of Mariah and Janet! There's even a dance number with the fully uniformed unsexy female cinema employees.

I do not know what to make of Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)" video. It's definitely... what's the African equivalent of Orientalist? The backup dancer army women aren't stick thin but... their battle gear of choice, for facing down a menacing group of riot geared men, is Appolonia's outfit from Purple Rain.